Mirso, February, 1822
Things had changed. For months
at night, the three of them took turns coercing his power.
They roused him on the battlements, stopped his release
until sensation lanced through him and the molten lava
at his center threatened his sanity. They would chant
with him, helping him to focus on whatever his target
was. He blew stones from the crenellated tower, or started
logs ablaze in the forest. It got easier, if no more comfortable.
He could raise that transcendent burning feeling almost
at will.
During the day Stancie came
to him to take her pleasure. She seemed to need more and
more stimulation. She sucked at his torn flesh and rocked
on his cock in orgasm after orgasm, unable, apparently
to be satiated. She was always careful to control his
ejaculation, though. He found release only in the bursts
of energy that devastated the targets set him each night.
Stephan existed in some twilight of sexual pain. His cock
had become an instrument of his own torture. But he embraced
that torture. He was on his path. Freya praised his efforts.
Even Dee took grim satisfaction in his progress.
Freya entered alone one night,
carrying some linen cloth, a rough wool robe and a hemp
rope. "Remove your chains and dress yourself." She smiled.
"My father wishes to see you."
Rubius wanted to see him? He
felt himself alternately flush and go white. He had seen
no one but these three women and the monks who saw to
his needs in how long? It seemed like forever. Would Rubius
declare him fit and send him into the world? He drew the
power. The darkness whirled around him. He melted through
the rough iron shackles and stood. She handed him the
linen.
"Bind your loins."
He flushed. That was to conceal
his ever-present erection. He wound the linen about his
hips, drew it between his legs and tied it, drawing his
shaft tight to his belly. Then, shame-faced, he took the
robe and slid the rough cloth over his head. It rasped
at his sensitive skin. He tied the hemp around his waist
without looking at her, and followed her into the corridor.
Rubius was seated at a writing
desk in his luxurious quarters when Freya opened the door
and motioned him in. Dee and Stancie stood in front of
the fire. Stephan vowed to be the perfect Penitent, obedient,
eager to do the Eldest's will. He put down his fear. Rubius
might set him a test. He refused to think what that test
might entail. Whatever it was, he would pass it.
Rubius finished his line, the
quill scratching across the paper. Then he sat back. "My
daughters tell me you are almost ready, Penitent."
"Your will is my command, Eldest."
Stephan stood with head bowed, concentrating on being
as empty as he could be.
"Would you like to examine him,
father?" Dee asked. "We could demonstrate."
He waved the thought away. "Not
necessary. You three are the experts. I bow to your experience.
How long?"
"A month I suppose…." Dee trailed
off.
"You have a week." Rubius's
naturally jolly face frowned. "I have word that Kilkenny
has made inroads into the British government. He thinks
to turn England into a base to use against me. Who knows
how many he has made?"
"His plan cannot work," Stancie
laughed. "No one can touch you, father."
"Don't be too sure," Rubius
admonished. "You are thinking of a single enemy, or ten.
But what about a thousand? Even if they are newly made,
sheer numbers can win out."
Horror took root in Stephan's
belly.
"Surely he does not have thousands!"
Freya exclaimed.
"Not yet." Rubius's bow mouth,
framed by his white whiskers, was set and grim. "That
is why you have no time. Ready him." He turned to Stephan.
"And you-apply yourself more strictly! Your atonement
is about to begin."
These many months had not been
atonement? Stephan found his breath coming shallowly.
All he had suffered had only been preparation. His atonement
would be killing vampires. Many vampires.
"A week!" Freya shook her head
as they left Rubius's apartments. "Only a week to learn
to suppress the erections and use the power without them?"
"And only a week to banish
the remainder of his emotion," Stancie added, following.
"A week is too little for the
final phase," Dee said briskly, as they wound their way
back down into the bowels of the monastery. She glanced
behind her to Stephan. "We shall simply have to apply
ourselves. He can't go jauntering about the country with
an erection. And he needs to suppress every ounce of emotion
if he is to have a chance against them."
Stancie was pouting as she brought
up the rear. "I hope father gives us another one to train.
Else how will I fulfill my needs?"
"I'm sure you will find a way
to satisfy yourself," Freya said dryly. She glanced back
to Stephan, doubt writ on her face. Did she think he wasn't
up to killing their nemesis?
"We will not use him, only raise
his erections that he might practice his control," Dee
said. They wound down a spiral staircase into the darkness.
"We all must sacrifice in order to build our perfect killing
tool, Stancie."
Stephan didn't feel like a perfect
killing tool. He had
allowed himself the emotion of horror when Rubius talked
about the many vampires being made. Even now he had to
admit that fear coiled in his belly. He had no idea how
he would ever learn to suppress the erections which had
become almost constant with him. Once the Daughters had
encouraged his tumescence, even required it. Now it was
forbidden?
They came again to the familiar
room. It had been a hateful prison, a grating place of
suffering. Now it seemed…comforting. He never wanted to
leave it.
"All right!" Dee clapped her
hands. "We begin." She pointed to a place on the rug and
Stephan knelt. "We will work round the clock if we must.
First, we will go over a new chant. Repeat after me, Penitent……"
He would sit on his bench, his
back to the fire, fully erect, chanting while Stancie
cut him over and over again, licked him to keep the wounds
open, then let his Companion heal them and began again.
They used him many times each night, of course, but now,
he would chant to himself to keep from coming, and they
would let him hold himself as long as he could before
they stepped in with their will to keep him bottled up.
In the early days, they had often rested his cock by having
him pleasure them with his mouth, but now, even when he
licked them, another was stimulating his genitals, to
provide him extra exercise in control. He practiced that
control during the days when he was chained, hard and
needing in front of the fire.
He could not control his dreams
though. He dreamed of early days with Beatrix and Asharti,
and in his dreams he and Beatrix loved each other and
Asharti was whole and sane. She was happy that Stephan
and Beatrix were in love. And Beatrix would touch him…
Those dreams always ended in
an explosive ejaculation. Where once the Daughters had
been glad to see the evidence of his wet dreams, now Dee
was displeased, and Freya worried.
"He is dissipating his power,"
Dee said, when they came in for the forth day in a row
to find that he had soiled himself with semen. She paced
the room in agitation while Freya cleaned him up. He was
ashamed he had disappointed them again. His cock was hard.
It was always hard, and Freya's gentle mopping with the
wet towel was excruciating. He began to chant in his mind
and got control. "He will never be ready at this rate."
Stephan's sense of impending
failure made him cling desperately to the chant.
"Have patience, Dee. It has
only been a year. We always knew it would take longer."
"But he was so promising at
first. He was naturally highly-sexed, and he made great
strides. Now this Kilkenny creature is making vampires
in Britain, and we have no weapon to stop him, and Stephan,"
here she made a dismissive gesture at him, "is coming
in his sleep."
Stancie stood with arms crossed
over her ample bosom next to the fire, frowning. "I think
we should rather increase the pace. Let us teach him not
how to suppress the power, but to direct it. Suppressing
it only results in these wasteful daytime ejaculations."
Dee was about to protest, but
she shut her mouth, thinking. "Maybe Stancie is right.
I'm… I'm not sure." She glanced to the stain on the wall
in the corner. Dee was always sure. Both her sisters and
Stephan looked at her in shock.
Freya stood. "No, Dee. You know
what happens. We stick to the plan." She glanced between
them. "And the plan is slow and steady. This is just a
phase he's going through. When he gets good control with
the chanting, these wet dreams will subside."
Stephan flushed in shame. They
were trying to make him into the instrument of their kind's
salvation and he was having wet dreams like a boy.
Dee pressed her lips together.
"You're right, of course."
It was Stancie who looked disgruntled,
her little bow mouth turned down. "Well at least say that
we can increase the level of pain he must suppress."
Dee nodded. "Yes. You and Freya
can both create wounds tonight." She turned to Stephan.
"And you! You will obey implicitly. You must be ready
to direct your power before you can do what you were meant
to do. And if you cannot control these pointless ejaculations,
perhaps some daylight punishment will motivate you."
Stephan swallowed. She didn't
need to threaten him. He wanted nothing more than to complete
his training and fulfill his purpose. But the threat of
another of those horrible days in the sunlight made him
quiver and broke his concentration.
He performed well that night.
In spite of the wounds they made on him he was stoic,
removed from pain by his focus on the chanting. He managed
control as they used him.
